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Now I watch a lot of broadcast TV and you should too. It’s the best way to gather information about the world other than the dark web but you aren’t ready for that. Patience.

When I’m not watching the #1 rated drama on US network television, NCIS, or one of its clones, on Sunday nights I sometimes creep over to the so-called “Public” television outlets on my high speed digital network. Now today, in this 21st Century Comb-Over Era, perception and expectation are everything, and I expect to only perceive British accents over on what we will now call for brevity’s sake, the PBS television network.

On a Sunday evening I expect to relax to some BBC 19th century parlor drama on my local public television station. Some programs on Public Television are actually from other UK production outlets like the commercial ITV. This is fine by me as long as they get the accent right. I’m as free market as the next yob when it comes to high brow television. But what’s got me really upset now is that they are starting to screen inferior accented series from Australia and New Zealand on public television. As if we couldn’t tell the difference between a British accent and an Aussie accent. Some people may be fooled, but not me. When I see my Pride and Prejudice I don’t want anybody popping off to Outback Steakhouse during the sponsor breaks at pledge time.

Unlike the US, Australia and New Zealand are just down in the mouth British colonies that couldn’t make it on their own. Australia is just a shabby California. There’s nothing high brow or hoity-toity about these convict transportation camps that would interest the more advanced American viewers of TV like myself. It’s shameful to screen ersatz Brideshead Revisiteds next to genuine smart English television content. You can always perceive when someone is trying to make it on the cheap. Substitute margarine for butter. Made in Polynesia for made in the UK. A downturn in pledge dollars doesn’t have to mean a sacrifice in quality. How much could reruns of Good Neighbors or As Time Goes By cost? As in all British TV, economical production values are overcome by high brow accents and big words where smaller words would normally suffice on large budget US TV programs like NCIS. That’s what the literate public TV viewer expects. Not G’day or throw another kangaroo on the barbie. Public TV has lost its rudder.

Alistair Cooke – More American than Apple Pie

Now we accept Irish, Scots, and Welsh or even Indian accents in our public television content because these are necessary for verisimilitude especially when properly accented English people are really in charge. This is only logical. Every country has its aboriginal peoples. Even America has Southern accents, but nobody is going to believe a documentary series about our founding fathers where people talk like they are from Atlanta or Sydney, people expect a British accent, and a low budget British production in some dreary castle would be even better. After all who is better suited to present past glories than the British? Nobody in America wants to see stories about small villages in the 1940s, or the 19th century in Australia or New Zealand and if public TV thinks they can foist this on American pledge givers as British programming just because cable network BBC America now gets the cream of British programming, along with the Star Trek franchise, well they need to wake up and smell the tea brewing. Pasty complexions, bad teeth and posh accents are what we expect on Sunday night.

Now with Brexit on the horizon the fear is that even more Oceania programming will make it onto the lucrative US public TV market. I say don’t stand for it. God Save the Queen! Vote with your pledge dollars. Sure you can expect lower production values in British television as a result but these can always be overcome with longer words and posher accents. More specials with dead 1950s and ’60s doo wop and pop groups are no substitute for high brow British mini series.

One yearns for the days when Alistair Cooke introduced Masterpiece with the proper Theater sup-pended to it. However, Alan Cummings, although with a Scots accent, is almost more an American staple than Cooke. Now if only the current content were as good.

I say put the Theater back in Masterpiece and take the Masterpiece out of Mystery. Don’t stand for inferior colonial programming. The next thing you know they’ll be putting programming from the ultimate failed colony, Canada, on public TV. The most patriotic thing you can do today is write to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or your local PBS station to keep our American public television exclusively British.

You know I love television, I’ve promoted its cultural, psychological, and physical benefits here in this blog enough. You know that. But the Emmys are the one exception. This batch of back slapping circle jerkers get together each year to supposedly “celebrate” the best of the best. Well, I’m going to tell you this incestuous relationship only leads to celebrating the worst of the best, the best being TV of course. If this was truly the best where was River Monsters? Where were the Kardashians on the so called red carpet? Where were the housewives of New Jersey, the Amish Mafia, The Barefoot Contessa? And most of all, where was season 11 of the most watched drama on network television, Naval Criminal Investigative Service? Where was Emily Wickersham? What a joke. Most importantly, where was my vote? Where does the common man/woman get his/her say?

Meanwhile shows like Orange is the New Crap, Game of Throwups, Downtown Abbey continue to garner undeserved accolades. Talk about a crime that should be investigated. Put Gibbs’ team on it!

The problem is the Emmy council, or whatever you call it, is run by one of the international conspiracy outfits, the highly secretive Bilderbergs, The Council on Foreign Relations, or the Trilateral Commission. Maybe somebody else. I’m sure Alex Jones knows. It’s another example of the elite oligarchs thinking they know what’s better for “the masses.” The idea should not be about what’s good for us, but about maintaining the liberty of our entertainment choices. These eggheads and silver spoon manipulators think they should rule the common man for his own good. Well listen up folks, the last time I checked this was still a representative republic and not a dictatorship. But democracy only happens when the common man takes the military-industrial-media bull by the horns and dumps the elites out of the thrones of Emmy power.

Good TV

We need the equivalent of an Emmy Tea Party. Boycott the awarded shows on cable and streaming media. Threaten to drop HBO and PBS from your satellite package. On commercial television refuse to buy from corporations that continue to advertise during these bad shows. Disguise ourselves as ethnic stereotypes and raid the local Best Buy or WalMart and dump the DVDs for shows like Big Bang Theory or the overtly socialist Saturday Night Live into the equivalent of Boston Harbor. Make the Emmy a death sentence for any show that truly doesn’t deserve it. That is the only chink in the armor of the elite media types and we need to drive a wedge into it. All they respond to is money, money, money, so hit ’em where it hurts ’em the most.

Bad TV

Only if we, the common people, wrestle the reigns of power from the elitist snobs and the fixers can we hope to keep television the life enriching, some say life saving medium, it was always meant to be. Maybe then the Emmys will mean something good. Otherwise you are going to be consigned to watching Modern Family for the rest of your life. Need I say more?

Somewhere in the David Tennant era the train came off the tracks. It started to be about romance, too many episodes were on earth, there were too many folks following the Doctor around and related to him, too much self-reference to previous lives and eras, too many people actually saying “Doctor Who?” out loud. Too few good stories. Steven Moffat took control and things really got awful. In the last few years I can only think of a handful of episodes I really enjoyed. I think the Doctor actors have come off pretty well as characters, but especially Matt Smith was fed almost nothing but crap for scripts. He did as well as he could.

If you go back to the first era the series really petered out during the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy Doctors. BBC screwed up the franchise then with poor writers and poor choices for Doctors seeing it still as a children’s program with little potential beyond that, and it’s on the verge now. Similar to what NBC did to Star Trek in the ’60s. Capaldi is a good choice for an actor but somebody has to hand him a bloody script.

Doctor What?

You cannot save this by bringing back the Daleks to menace the earth once again. How many times have we seen that? Quit bringing back “beloved” characters from previous episodes, eras, without some original and exciting writing to go with it. Piss on the romance. It was always about affection not romance. A certain amount of sexual tension is good until outright romance jumps the shark; a grasping at simpering sentimentality instead of good writing.

Thomas Ligotti is my kind of guy, sorta. He always expects the worst. He spends all his time worrying about how he’s going to suffer and die and expects that everyone else is just the same, except some of us are better at fooling ourselves about the outcome. That makes him mad. He thinks all the folks that don’t worry about dying and suffering are deceiving themselves and just distracting themselves with ideas of afterlives or just having a good time, you know, trying not to think about it. And he’s right, but these other folks are a whole lot happier than he is. Now we can see the real problem, sorta.

Ligotti has a big head, a really big head and that’s why he thinks about all these dreary things all the time instead of watching television or playing golf. He’s always talking about how consciousness and self awareness are a tragedy and a curse on humankind; a crappy adaptation that evolution sneaked in there. The thing he forgets is most people are really unconscious most of the time anyway, even when they’re not sleeping; they’re clueless about this kind of stuff, so why does he want to remind them and take them into his pity party? Leave them alone with their fairy tale lives. Don’t bring ’em down. Don’t rain on their parade. Not enough hobbies I guess. Not enough television. Not enough high speed internet downloading those “short films.”

Well what’s Ligotti’s answer? Don’t have any kids. That’s it. What, you say? That makes him feel better about things? Yeah, his basic argument is that by having kids we doom all the future generations to the suffering and death we have so we shouldn’t have any: antinatalism they call it. Let the species die out. Well if Ligotti had any kids he wouldn’t be worrying about his great grandbaby’s suffering, he’d be worrying about his own suffering trying to deal with his own kids, getting them through college and boyfriends, etc. I bet his parents suffered plenty with him. Forget about future generation’s suffering. Besides his kids would be the kind that would suffer because all the bullies would rag them about their egghead dad.

I think his problem maybe is really low testosterone and therefore low sperm count. He isn’t gettin’ it on enough. Only those coffin chicks would even consider hangin’ out with him he’s so dreary and down. He needs to jerk it more too, take some of the tension and pressure off it. He can’t have kids so he wants us to join him. Sour grapes.

Ligotti writes a horror story about once every decade or so, when he isn’t feeling sorry for himself and the rest of us. They’re pretty good, but enigmatic. Now I don’t expect you to understand a word like that, nor a story like that, because you are correctly spending your time feeling good and not worrying about future generation’s suffering or how the joke’s on us. Stay away from funerals. Hide the razorblades.

Sure, we’re all going to step off the pier sometime, but why waste any time thinking about that? Remember I told you to always expect the worst, so now that that’s over let’s move on to feelin’ good.

I’ve given you all the prescription you need in this blog to quit thinking about that dirt nap: TV, NCIS, loud music, giant monster movies, malt liquor. So, mix up some cocktails and turn on the wide screen to some NCIS and put a Chuck Berry record on that stereo set ’cause we’re goin’ out with a buzz in our heads and a smile on our faces.

What’s so bad about feelin’ good for the rest of your miserable little life?

Okay, here we go. My subtext today is pissing off European Italians, so if you think this might offend you, go away now!

Once again the Italian justice system has shown how screwed up it is by convicting Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of the murder of Meredith Kercher for a second time, after being found innocent in-between! I’m not sure what political agenda is involved in this other than Europeans, specifically Italian Europeans, who see this as a way to once again bash Americans. What sort of pastafazoole is it that keeps retrying a person already found innocent? Is the Italian criminal justice system as faulty as their government?

Anyone who has followed this nightmare knows that the Italians already have the murderer in jail. There are so many detailed descriptions of how the murder actually went down and how non-existent the evidence against Knox and her then boyfriend is (plus the lack of any motive). The Italian justice system tried to portray Knox and her boyfriend as some sort of drug crazed maniacs. Look at the videos from the crime scene, do those look like hung-over drug crazed maniacs?

Now the Italians are trying to extradite Amanda from the US. If the United States buys into this spaghetti farce it will simply go to show once again that the US justice system is just as messed up as the Italian justice system is. Besides, when have we ever listened to foreigners, especially ones that don’t live here, much less let them tell us what to do.

I’m sure that most Italians also think this whole thing is a load of ravioli stuffing but the lawyers, judges, and politicians involved with this thing, plus anyone who is just in this as an American hater, isn’t fit to even be a spaghetti bender.

It seems I’ve been shunned, cast into the dust bin of the blogoshphere. This isn’t to be unexpected. Great minds have always been unrecognized in their lifetimes and the fact that I warn you, the 50% that are below average, off the most important and mind expanding posts, for your own good I might add, just makes it harder to be heard and appreciated.

Maybe it is because so many of you have taken my advice and devoted your life to not caring about anything, always expecting the worst, and a D minus effort. Maybe your spouse is pushing cheeseburgers under your locked bedroom door as you watch endless reruns of NCIS from your 11 season BluRay DVD collection. Perhaps you’ve discarded your cell phone and landline and your internet connection to take yourself off the grid so the NSA cannot peep on your miserable little life. You’ve given up that daily torture ritual you called fitness and sold your Nautilus machine and stationary bike and canceled your gym membership. This means you’ve taken my advice to heart. Maybe I should be glad I get so few hits and that your apathy is a testament to my persuasiveness.

I should have expected this; taken my own advice and expected the worst (for me personally). At least you have lightened my load and I can quit doing all the heavy lifting here as you tell the friends that wonder what happened to you, why they never see you, about your new, better, lifestyle. Perhaps this whole thing has gone viral but in a non-digital way, by old fashioned word of mouth.

I feel better now knowing that you have ceased to care that the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges never work or that another government shutdown is looming in a few months, or that the Philippines are under water . This means I’ve done my job making your life just a little better and that in turn makes my life just a little better as well.

Keep up the D minus effort and we’ll all make it to the grave just a little bit less stressed out.

A lot of people blog because they have a big ego and think tens of thousands of people out there are going to hang on their every word. They want people to nod their heads for every opinion they write about. They want comments about how brilliant and how oh so right they are. They think everyone wants to look into their private psychoses and their dreary website and affirm their useless digital scribblings. It’s all about me, me, me…

Well this blog is different, it’s all about you, you, you. I’m here for you. I’ve got your back. What other blogger warns you off some posts while putting others out there that you know will improve your life? Don’t some posts seem to have been written just for you personally? Huh? Do you think I’d sit here punching this keyboard if I didn’t feel an urgent social responsibility? I’ve got tons of episodes of NCIS on the DVR and I could be parking my lazy ass on the divan and enjoying the best TV program ever made. But no, I’m here trying to improve your miserable life, a complete stranger. That’s how big I am; a giving person, a servant.

Where You’ll End Up

Oh sure I have to use tough love sometimes and point out the deficiencies in you and your world but you know it’s for your own good. I don’t like doing it but somebody has to or you are going to end up on the trash heap of humanity. I worry about you all the time, especially the 50% of you that are below average. I stay up late trying to think of something that is going to stick in your little pea brain, that can pull you up from the desperate and hopeless state you are currently in.

Fairies and Rainbows

I try to temper these intense self-improvement posts with other posts of whimsy and carefree fun that will brighten your otherwise dreary day. I add the occasional important current event because I know you haven’t touched a newspaper in years and when you did all you cared about was what the Kardashians were doing. See these are all for your own good too. I spend a lot of time each and every day thinking about how to get through to you and improve your life just a little. I put all my needs aside to serve you, dear reader.

I’m Here for You!

Well I just wanted you to know that when the chips are down, like they always are for you, you can count on me. I wanted you to know I’m making more than a D minus effort for you. Whatever disaster comes into your world I’ll be putting all my resources into how best to deal with it and keep you from circling the drain. Think of me as the FEMA of bloggers, but in a better way that actually arrives in time and helps the afflicted.

Remember I’m here if you need me and I’m ready to make time for you day or night. Oh, and like I’ve told you before, lowered expectations are the key to a less than miserable life so just expect the worst and everything will be all right.

Somewhere out there is the last guy. On the big ladder of life some guy is on the last rung about to fall off. Think about it. Everyone says: “At least I’m not that guy.” But there must by logic be one guy that can’t say this; he’s the last guy. He cannot say at least I’m not that guy because he is that guy, the lowest on the ol’ totem pole. He can say: “There’s nowhere to go but up,” but he’s wrong. His lot is to get his fingers stepped on or dragged off the ladder by the second to last guy and down he goes. Now there is a new last guy because there will always be one until we are all gone.

I think Stephen King once wrote a story about this.

The only remedy to this is my prescription to always expect to be disappointed. Then when that second to last guy steps on your hands, well you expected as much and can’t really feel worse for it. You aren’t disappointed at least.

You need to think about this seriously because you know unless you take my advice you are going to be this last guy who has everyone to look up to and no one to look down on. Just here to help. Otherwise you might as well let go now. Hide the razorblades…

Well here’s todays installment of me foaming at the mouth. As you can plainly see it’s called Pointless, and if you haven’t already figured out that it’s going to be a waste of your time then you’re on the wrong side of the mean.

Pointless

Anyway, here we go. Where to start? A bunch of years ago (you already know I’m not looking it up!) a scientist/anthropologist sort of Viking guy name Thor Heyerdahl built this raft using prehistoric methods and materials. He launched it into the Pacific Ocean. Eventually he landed using only primitive means and supplies on a Polynesian island. So, you’re gonna say this was pointless, oh no effendi, this had a very good reason. Let’s just make one thing clear, this scientist was the first person in the historic era to do anything like this and he wrote about it. This is very important so quit nodding off. Why? He was trying to see if prehistoric man could have populated all of Polynesia; if they had all the means and knowhow to achieve this. This was important because a lot of scientists were skeptical and there were conflicting theories about how Polynesia could have been populated. Heyerdahl proved that some guys in prehistoric times would have all they needed to push off from the continents to eventually find and populate all the islands. It didn’t prove that this is what happened but it proved all the guys wrong that said it couldn’t have happened this way. It also showed just how early or late Polynesia could have been settled. This is how science proceeds you waterheads.

Hero – Scientist

Now somewhere along the line another guy got the idea to do the same thing as Heyerdahl, exactly the same way. This is the most important thing I’m going to tell you so write it down, this guy’s escapade was pointless. Why? Heyerdahl had already done it. There was nothing further to be proved by a second trip. Even if this second guy died trying, it proved nothing since Heyerdahl had already proved it could be done. Nobody really cared that you could die doing it. Everyone already knew this. There were probably a lot of prehistoric guys who sailed off and died trying. So why did this second modern guy do this silly thing. Was he really stupid? Was he crazy? Probably not, after all even doing a lousy job would require a lot of planning and intelligence. Hmmmm. You wanna know why he did it? Because he’s an egotistical and selfish bastard, a piece of human scum, that’s why.

Hold on a minute you say, here’s a brave and intelligent fellow. He’s taking on this dangerous quest all alone with no modern contrivances. No he’s a selfish ego-driven idiot and a bane on humankind; someone never to be held up as a role model. I’m going to prove this to you so pay attention. Why? Because he does this out of his own selfish reasons, to prove some pointless fact about his courage and brilliance, plus he probably counts on us to risk our lives to bail him out if things go awry. He’s nothing but a spendthrift thrill seeker hoping you’ll be a big enough sucker to support him/her and say “well done” and have a parade when he/she maybe comes back. He’s a dumb ass swindler. A flim-flam man.

Heroes – Explorers

Here’s another thing I heard that’s a little different but equally pointless. In the early part of the 20th century a lot of folks were trying to be the first to the South Pole in Antarctica. This has at least some little merit from a scientific standpoint but it was basically another attempt to explore a place NOBODY had gone to before. There were two groups that went to the Pole, a British team and a Norwegian guy. Well the Norwegian guy got there first because he had a better plan and somewhat better luck. The British guys all died coming back, so the fact that they reached the Pole second almost doesn’t count because you’ve got to get back to tell about it to say it’s successful.

Dumb Ass

Now fast forward to modern times. People go to the South Pole all the time. People even live there in a sort of moon-base setup now. But here come some dumb-asses that want to go to the South Pole just like the British team did in 1911 (circa), man-hauling sledges, to “prove” that it could be done. What? First we already know it could be done. It was done by a Norwegian guy with a dogsled. It is also pretty certain that with a little better luck and maybe planning the British team would have gotten back as well. In addition, this is not like Heyerdahl’s experiment because we already know how people got to the South Pole, it’s no mystery. On top of this there are all sorts of less dangerous ways to get to the South Pole. You should use these before you resort to early 20th century technology and depend on us to save your ass in case of trouble. This newest expedition is pointless and a waste of time and money, no reason for accolades; an egotistical display of wasted time, money, and effort. An expensive and foolish hobby. And unnecessarily dangerous and risky.

Hero – Explorer

We see this all the time: somebody we know summits Mt. Everest, they’re somehow a better or deeper souled person than we are. No they’re as selfish as the guy down the street who spent $50,000 on a car. We already know somebody can get to the top of Mt. Everest, hundreds of people have done it. Planes fly higher. Real brave explorers have even walked on the moon, think about that. Now here is something to crow about: being launched in a tin can 250,000 airless miles with a pocket calculator for guidance and actually getting there and all the way back in one piece with rocks to prove you were there (uh, oh here come the loonies talking about the back-lot in New Mexico again). We actually learned a lot of stuff in the process unlike the guy who summits Everest without oxygen. Big deal!

More Dumb Asses

The last part is these fools put other people’s lives at risk with their egotistical and foolish behavior. How many times do we hear about the Coast Guard trying to pluck some retard out of a boat in a hurricane when they were trying to sail around the world alone? I say let the dumb asses drown. Why put a CG helicopter crew at risk for some dummy that doesn’t have the sense to crew his sailboat or come in out of the storm. This person put themselves intentionally in peril and we’re supposed to die to save them. I don’t think so! It’s like tying yourself to a potential suicide standing on a building ledge 30 stories up, a real bad idea. We’re supposed to come rescue these idiots when they express their ego-driven Darwinian behavior? It’s fake heroics. Heroics without purpose is just a waste of everything.

Another Dumb Ass

What I’m trying to say is all these stunters that are always trying to get support for their “expeditions” are nothing but leeches. Their time, money, and effort could be channeled into something useful. The problem is they get no accolades for their courage for building and staffing a soup kitchen. What kind of lousy accomplishment is that? There are all sorts of people everyday that are doing brave things with a point that don’t have this incredible ego thing going on and wasting our oxygen. Think about a fireman going into a burning building for a child, a regular cop who never knows if the next drunk isn’t going to go berserk at a traffic stop, an ambulance driver in Afghanistan, Mother Teresa helping infectious lepers. There are tons of deserving and heroic people making a difference in life, science, spirituality, etc. that really put it on the line and for a real reason, not pointlessness.

So be careful when you hold these “models” up your children or others. They aren’t role models. They are egotistical selfish people displaying dangerous behaviors. Is that who you want your kids to look up to and emulate?

A Real Hero

So I’m never going to jump out of an airplane and rely on a bed sheet to keep me from hitting the ground unless the plane is going to crash because then it’s the less risky, less foolish, less pointless option. And if I make it I don’t expect anybody to be patting me on the back for how brave I was in saving my own sorry ass.